CougarFan.com Blog

Thursday, August 1, 2013

By John Ahlander, CougarFan.comLast night, BYUtv Sports unveiled the Top 50 BYU Football plays of all-time. At #8 was Kyle Van Noy's strip-and-score in the 2012 San Diego Poinsettia Bowl last December. What happened right before that series? Here's the story.As the game played out, the BYU defense was getting more and more frustrated with the BYU offense for failing to score. In the first minutes of the 4th quarter, the BYU offensive had just turned the ball over for the 3rd time and the score was SDSU 6, BYU 3. Van Noy had enough. He came over to Running Back Coach Joe DuPaix, who was on the headset with Offensive Coordinator Brandon Doman. He ripped the headset off Coach DuPaix's head and yelled at Coach Doman. "What the <bleep> are you guys doing? The defense is holding up our part. Get it going!". The coaches and surrounding players were stunned.Van Noy promptly took the field, stripped Aztec's quarterback Dingwell in the end zone and recovered the fumble for a touchdown. He followed it up two series later with an interception return for a touchdown. By the end of the game, he had single-handedly outscored the BYU offensive 12-11.As Paul Harvey would say...now you have the rest of the story.

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Monday, July 29, 2013

By John Ahlander, CougarFan.comMore and more fans are opting to stay home and watch college football games on TV, instead of making the effort to go in person. This is principally due to increased television coverage, in HD, enjoyed from your living room couch.Here are five things BYU should do to improve the in-stadium experience for the fans that spend the time to travel to the stadium, pay for expensive tickets and food, and cheer the team on in person.1. Use ribbon boards for something useful

BYU made a huge deal last year out of the installation of new video scoreboards and ribbon boards in the stadium. The video boards were excellent quality and added to the game experience, but the ribbon boards were a huge disappointment. Basically, they were a 3-hour advertisement, and during night games, the flashing lights were a big distraction. What a waste! BYU should use the ribbon boards to show a ticker of current game stats and scores from other games of interest. This is common at most professional sports venues.

2. Provide Free WIFI

One big disadvantage of going to the stadium to watch the game instead of staying home is that you are now disconnected from the Internet. Cell phone data coverage in the stadium is overwhelmed and unreliable. With the announcement of Google Fiber to Provo, why not swing a deal for Google to provide free WIFI in stadium, like they are proposing to do in various U.S. cities.

3. Show college football highlights on the video board during game breaks

ESPN is our partner, right? BYU should request the rights to show the most recent ESPN SportsCenter 30-second college football update on the video board. TV viewers get this while watching the game, but the in-stadium fans don't. Why not?

4. Show half-time TV analysis on the video board

Another benefit of watching from home is getting professional analysis of the first half. In the stadium, this is forfeited. Why not broadcast it on the big screen? If not the ESPN half-time analysis, at least the BYUtv announcer crew.

5. Better half-time shows

Apologies in advance to the band, but there is an opportunity to entertain the fans more with better half-time shows. Maybe BYU could showcase local music talent during half time. Many aspiring artists would give a free half-time show, if they could sell their CDs in the stadium afterwards.

What are your ideas to improve the in-stadium experience?

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